IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v59y2015i1p71-90.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electoral Competition through Issue Selection

Author

Listed:
  • Enriqueta Aragonès
  • Micael Castanheira
  • Marco Giani

Abstract

Politics must address multiple problems simultaneously. In an ideal world, political competition would force parties to adopt priorities that reflect the voters' true concerns. In reality, parties can run their campaigns in such a way as to manipulate voters' priorities. This phenomenon, known as priming, may allow parties to underinvest in solving the issues that they intend to mute. We develop a model of endogenous issue ownership in which two vote‐seeking parties (a) invest in policy quality to increase the value of their platform and (b) choose a communication strategy to prime voters. We identify novel feedback between communication and investment. In particular, we find that stronger priming effects can constrain parties to invest more resources in all issues. We also identify the conditions under which parties prefer to focus on their “historical issues” or to engage in “issue stealing.”

Suggested Citation

  • Enriqueta Aragonès & Micael Castanheira & Marco Giani, 2015. "Electoral Competition through Issue Selection," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(1), pages 71-90, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:59:y:2015:i:1:p:71-90
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12120
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12120
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ajps.12120?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Josep Colomer & Humberto Llavador, 2012. "An agenda-setting model of electoral competition," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 73-93, March.
    2. Richard Van Weelden & Massimo Morelli, 2012. "Reelection through Division," 2012 Meeting Papers 111, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Enriqueta Aragonès & Santiago Sánchez-Páges, 2010. "The Disadvantage of Winning an Election," Working Papers 439, Barcelona School of Economics.
    4. Raphaël Soubeyran & Pascal Gautier, 2008. "Political Cycles: Issue Ownership and the Opposition Advantage," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(4), pages 685-716, August.
    5. Sides, John, 2006. "The Origins of Campaign Agendas," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(3), pages 407-436, July.
    6. Dan Kovenock J. & Brian Roberson, 2010. "Conflicts with Multiple Battlefields," CESifo Working Paper Series 3165, CESifo.
    7. Glazer, Amihai & Lohmann, Susanne, 1999. "Setting the Agenda: Electoral Competition, Commitment of Policy, and Issue Salience," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 99(3-4), pages 377-394, June.
    8. Pablo Amorós & M. Puy, 2013. "Issue convergence or issue divergence in a political campaign?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 355-371, June.
    9. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, I: Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    10. Massimo Morelli & Richard Van Weelden, 2013. "Ideology and information in policymaking," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 25(3), pages 412-439, July.
    11. Gabriel S. Lenz, 2009. "Learning and Opinion Change, Not Priming: Reconsidering the Priming Hypothesis," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 821-837, October.
    12. Georgy Egorov, 2015. "Single-Issue Campaigns and Multidimensional Politics," NBER Working Papers 21265, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. AMOROS, Pablo & PUY, M. Socorro, 2007. "Dialogue or issue divergence in the political campaign?," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2007084, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Qiaoxi, 2020. "Vagueness in multidimensional proposals," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 307-328.
    2. Georgy Egorov, 2015. "Single-Issue Campaigns and Multidimensional Politics," NBER Working Papers 21265, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    4. Elliott Ash & Massimo Morelli & Richard Van Weelden, 2015. "Elections and Divisiveness: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 21422, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Francesco Caselli & Tom Cunningham & Massimo Morelli & Inés Moreno de Barreda, 2012. "Signalling, Incumbency Advantage, and Optimal Reelection Rules," CEP Discussion Papers dp1122, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Elena Manzoni & Stefan P. Penczynski, 2018. "Last Minute Policies and the Incumbency Advantage," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 19(3), pages 280-308, August.
    7. Ying Chen & Hülya Eraslan, 2017. "Dynamic Agenda Setting," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 1-32, May.
    8. Sturm, Silke, 2019. "Political Competition: How to Measure Party Strategy in Direct Voter Communication using Social Media Data?," Hamburg Discussion Papers in International Economics 1, University of Hamburg, Department of Economics.
    9. Balart, Pau & Casas, Agustin & Troumpounis, Orestis, 2022. "Technological change, campaign spending and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    10. Denter, Philipp, 2020. "Campaign contests," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    11. Caselli, Francesco & Morelli, Massimo & Moreno de Barreda, Inés & Cunningham, Tom, 2012. "Signalling, Incumbency Advantage, and Optimal Reelection Thresholds," CEPR Discussion Papers 8832, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Yohei Yamaguchi & Ken Yahagi, 2024. "Law enforcement and political misinformation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 36(1), pages 3-36, January.
    13. Chitralekha Basu & Matthew Knowles, 2021. "The Revelation Incentive for Issue Engagement in Campaigns," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 132, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    14. Stephen Ansolabehere & M. Socorro Puy, 2015. "Issue-salience, Issue-divisiveness and Voting Decisions," Working Papers 2015-01, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    15. Osório, António (António Miguel), 2018. "Conflict and Competition over Multi-Issues," Working Papers 2072/306550, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    16. Salvador Barberà & Anke Gerber, 2022. "(Not) Addressing Issues in Electoral Campaigns," Working Papers 1353, Barcelona School of Economics.
    17. Denter, Philipp, 2013. "A theory of communication in political campaigns," Economics Working Paper Series 1302, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    18. Osório António, 2018. "Conflict and Competition over Multi-Issues," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 1-17, July.
    19. Klumpp, Tilman & Konrad, Kai A. & Solomon, Adam, 2019. "The dynamics of majoritarian Blotto games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 402-419.
    20. Raymond J. Deneckere & Dan Kovenock, 1988. "Capacity-Constrained Price Competition When Unit Costs Differ," Discussion Papers 861, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:59:y:2015:i:1:p:71-90. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.